For many years, livestock and boundary fences incorporating barbed wire strands attached to metal support posts have been used. The metal support posts most frequently used are of a generally T-shaped cross-sectional configuration and with spaced alignment guides to maintain the spacing of plural strands of wire making up a fence. The wire strands are secured to a metal post with a short length of wire that has one end wrapped around a strand, then passed around the post, and then the other end is wrapped around the strand to hold the strand to the post. This method binds the wire quite securely to the post with regard to both fore and aft and lateral movement of the wire strand.
To provide a tightly stretched fence, using the conventional wire post ties, metal T-posts, and barbed wire, it has been necessary to employ a wire puller to stretch each length of wire between adjacent posts or to remove the wire ties prior to stretching the strands. This is a time-consuming and cumbersome task. Snow loads acting on a fence co constructed usually result in broken wire strands because the strands are held rigidly to the post, and lateral movement of the wire strands relative to the posts is essentially prevented.